


The Studio

by radishface



Series: Deepfakes [1]
Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 00:42:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radishface/pseuds/radishface
Summary: It goes as all love stories go: once upon a time, one person liked another person very much.





	The Studio

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Up in Michigan](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/531110) by Ernst Hemingway. 

> Originally posted in _Scientific Methods: A/B Tests_.

* * *

Once upon a time, Lee Daehwi liked Kang Dongho very much.

He liked the way Dongho walked from the stage to the seats when his name was announced. He liked the way Dongho looked unsatisfied and hurt. He liked the way Dongho’s stubble would come in strong exactly at five o’clock every day. He liked it about how white Dongho’s teeth were when he smiled. He liked it very much that he didn’t look like a typical boy band member.

Lee Daehwi was sixteen and he had spent six years in America, which made him slightly better than the others who hadn’t spent time overseas. Daehwi liked to write music in his spare time, which also made him better than most of the others who didn’t know how to write music. Daehwi knew from Dongho’s history that Dongho also wrote music and had also toured overseas. He liked very much how Dongho had a fanbase that was small but loyal and how the fanbase gave Dongho the name _Sexy Bandit_ and he found that he liked the way that Dongho’s hair was black on his arms and how white they were above the tanned line when he washed up in the showers next to the dorms. Liking that made Daehwi feel funny.

* * *

Daehwi had a nice face and nice neck and always wore his clothes clean and neat. Dongho noticed that Daehwi was always neat. He liked Daehwi’s face because it looked like a girl’s but otherwise didn’t think about Daehwi.

Dongho came to Produce 101 from Nu’est which was a failed boy band. He had tried for almost six years to make it big. Dongho was a good singer but did not look like much of a singer even when he had his hair dyed in fantastic colors and wore aggressive clothes. He looked more like a baseball player or a yakuza.

Produce 101 was a television show but it was also a place two hours outside Seoul on the road to Paju. There was the Studio which was just a subdivided warehouse but looked like a Grecian temple from the front. The Studio was where the show was filmed. There was fountain outside the building with a replica cherub that spewed water only a few days a year and a track that looped around a football field that was always wet and a convenience store down the dirt street outside. The houses around the studio had blue tin roofs and grey walls of plaster. This was farming country and the land was cheap up and down the road.

From the roof of the Studio you could look past the houses and to the highway that snaked into the mountains and out of here. Beyond the mountains was the next town over. It was a beautiful view in the spring and summer, the sky blue and bright. In the winter, there was the tell-tale whitecap of snow on the mountain. From the roof of the Studio Lee Daehwi could see the cars drive on the highway in strips of white and red lights. Some days when he was up there they didn’t seem to be moving at all but if he went inside to practice and then came back upstairs the highway would be empty with nothing going into the mountain or coming out.

Winter turned into spring that year and all the time now Daehwi was thinking of Kang Dongho. He didn’t seem to notice Daehwi very much except when he needed something. He talked about the show to his friends and about what he would do when he got out of this place and about how rotten the industry was. To Daehwi it sounded like biting the hand that fed him but Kang Dongho was part of a failing boy band so maybe he was allowed to be bitter. In the evenings Kang Dongho watched TV in the common room and played mobile games on his phone and took his time in the shower. In the mornings he took his time shaving but by five’o clock his stubble would be back, a dark and hazy shadow that Daehwi liked very much.

Lee Daehwi and his best friend Jeon Somi often Facetimed on the roof of the Studio. She was busy and so was Daehwi but they liked to keep in touch. Daehwi hurt for her understanding very much. He wanted to make Dongho notice him somehow but he didn’t want to do anything that would go wrong. Daehwi was afraid to ask Somi for any advice and afraid that if he brought it up that Somi wouldn’t have anything helpful to say because this was the kind of thing that couldn’t be helped. It would have been all right with Somi but Lee Daehwi was afraid and only said very little.

All the time Dongho was practicing or watching TV when Daehwi thought about him. It was awful to go through the days when Dongho barely even noticed. Daehwi couldn’t sleep well from thinking about Dongho but he discovered it was fun to think about Dongho too. If Daehwi let himself go it was better.

The night before they were all supposed to go onstage and sing their arrangement of a song from a popular girl group he didn’t sleep because it was mixed up in a dream about not sleeping and really not sleeping.

After the show when they were watching the playback and the scores from the audience came in Daehwi felt weak and sick inside. He couldn’t wait until the evaluation was over and they could go back to just being back to the way they were which was Dongho not noticing him and Daehwi noticing him in the shadows. If they could just do that until the show ended or until one of them got voted off then he would be all right.

The evaluation ended and they walked outside. They were all sweating but Dongho most so. His shirt was made of a filmy material and clung to the planes of him from his sweat. The other boys were waiting backstage and welcomed them with a round of applause as they sat down in their chairs to watch the other performances. Daehwi took a seat behind Bae Jinyoung who smiled at him mysteriously through his patch but behind it was just pinkeye. You did well, Bae Jinyoung said. You hadn’t known what would happen up there on stage when you got back but you were sure it would be something. Nothing had happened. You had just finished your performance, that’s all.

Dongho watched the performances just like you. Some of the performances were hard but done well and some of them were clunky but Daehwi could see that everybody was doing their best which made it even sadder because someday everyone would have to go home except for the chosen final eleven.

“What did you think, Dongho?” Daehwi asked, when all the performances were done.

“Not bad.” Dongho fanned himself with the shirt the stylist had put on him for the performance. Daehwi copied him and they both laughed.

On the nights they finished challenges they would celebrate and tonight was no exception. They washed up back in the dorms and then went out to for dinner in the town past the mountain.

The older ones like Dongho were drinking beer and when the night got later they asked the waiter for soju. The quiet ones became quieter and the louder ones became louder but when everyone laughed that was the restaurant at its loudest. Even though Lee Daehwi wasn’t of drinking age he still felt drunk with what the smell in the air and the speed of the talking and the jokes and the atmosphere. In the late hour Dongho passed him the bottle in which the liquid slopped back and forth. He did it in a casual way that was like he forgot Daehwi’s real age. Daehwi sniffed it but didn’t drink. Dongho took the bottle back and took a long pull. Some of it ran down his chin. Then he sent for more and the waiter brought out another bottle and Dongho poured out big shots for the other hyungs around the table.

“Good job to everyone tonight,” said Jonghyun, who always felt the need to say something during celebrations like this. “Everyone worked really hard.”

“Fuckin’ hard,” Dongho said.

“And to all of those who didn’t make it from before,” said Moonbok, with tears in his eyes.

“Tastes good,” said Jaehwan.

“The best for this kind of feeling,” said Ong.

“How about another one, boys?”

“Sure thing, let’s go around again.”

“Down the hatch.”

“‘Til the next elimination.”

Dongho began to feel great. He loved the taste and feel of soju. He was glad to be here with his old teammates, with Jonghyun and Minhyun and Minki at one table and even with the others. He was shy of the attention and not used to it especially when they had never been that famous anyway. Fame was an acquired taste, he was realizing through the show. People looked at him here in a way he didn’t know what to do with. He had another drink and looked around the table. Daehwi had moved to sit with the younger boys and he was laughing at something. It was a good dinner. Everyone ate a lot. After dinner they went into the lobby and put on all their coats and headed out into the winter that was turning wet into spring. The vans that were waiting for them took them back to the Studio.

One by one like schoolboys they went upstairs and washed up. Dongho was sitting on the bean bags in the common room apologizing to Sewoon for being a jackass about the arrangement. Sorry that I tried to overcontrol things, he said. Sewoon looked at him with a little smile that said he accepted Dongho’s apology and then Sewoon admitted that the arrangement might have been better in the rock style that Dongho had originally proposed. He asked Dongho why he didn’t want to lead. Dongho didn’t have the answer so their conversation stopped there.

Daehwi had just finished his shower and was sitting in the kitchen area pretending to play a game on his phone and thinking about Dongho. He didn’t want to go to bed yet because he knew Dongho would be washing up next and Daehwi wanted to see Dongho as he came out so he could take the way Dongho looked back to bed with him.

Daehwi was thinking about Dongho hard and Dongho came out of the shower. His eyes were shining and his hair was damp and tousled. Daehwi looked down at his phone. Dongho came over to the back of his chair and stood there and Daehwi could feel him breathing and then Dongho put his arms around Daehwi. His collarbones felt slim and fragile and his chest fluttered like a bird’s. Daehwi was scared, no one had ever touched him like this, but he thought, here he is. Dongho’s finally here. He’s really here.

Daehwi held himself stiff because he was so scared and didn’t know what else to do and then Dongho held him tight against the chair and kissed him. It was such a sharp, aching, hurting feeling that he thought he couldn’t stand it. He felt Dongho right through the back of the chair and he couldn’t stand it and then something clicked inside of him and the feeling was soft and hot and hazy. Dongho held Daehwi tight against the chair and Daehwi wanted it now.

Dongho whispered, “Let’s go for a walk.”

Daehwi was wearing a thick cardigan so he didn’t get his jacket from the room which would have interrupted the moment. They went out the door. Dongho had his arm around Daehwi and every little way they stopped and pressed against each other and Dongho kissed him. There was no moon and they walked past the fountain and past where the street lights could shine down to the track and football field where the sprinkler-soaked grass bounced under their feet, making their socks wet. They sat down on the bleachers and it was cold but Daehwi was hot all over from being with Dongho. They sat down at the farthest bleacher where the was an overhanging awning and Dongho pulled Daehwi close to him. Daehwi was scared. One of Dongho’s hands went up his shirt and stroked over his chest and the other hand was in his lap. Daehwi was very scared and didn’t know how this kind of thing worked but he still huddled closer to Dongho. Then the hand that felt so big in his lap went away and it was on his leg and started to move up it.

“Dongho,” Daehwi’s voice caught, and Dongho slid the hand further up.

“We shouldn’t, Dongho, we shouldn’t.” Neither Dongho nor Dongho’s hand paid any attention to him.

The bleachers were hard. Dongho had his hand back on Daehwi’s lap and was trying to do something to him. Daehwi was scared but he wanted it too. He had to have it but it scared him.

“Dongho, Dongho, we shouldn’t be.”

“We have to. This is what you want. The way you’ve been looking at me. It’s been driving me crazy.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Daehwi said, “I can’t help it. Oh. We shouldn’t. Oh. Dongho. Dongho. Oh.”

The metal planks of the bleachers were hard and cold and Dongho was heavy and they were both sticky. Daehwi pushed him off, he was so uncomfortable and cramped. Dongho was asleep. He wouldn’t move. Daehwi worked out from under Dongho and sat up and straightened himself up and pulled his cardigan down to cover the wet spot. Dongho was sleeping a little with his mouth open. Daehwi leaned over and kissed him on the lips. He was still asleep. Daehwi lifted his head a little and shook it. He rolled over and swallowed. Daehwi started to cry. He walked back down the bleachers and looked past the football field. He felt cold and miserable and everything felt gone.

He walked back up the bleachers where Dongho was lying and shook him once more to make sure. He was crying.

“Dongho,” he said. “Dongho, please.”

Dongho stirred and curled a little tighter. Daehwi took off his cardigan and covered him with it. He tucked it around him neatly and carefully. Then he walked back down the bleachers and back up the track to the Studio. A cold mist was coming from down the mountains.

* * *

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as the final chapter in _Scientific Methods: A/B Tests_, I brought this out as a one-shot to bucket it together with the other Deepfakes adapted from my favorite stories and prose from the literature world. 
> 
> I first read _Up in Michigan_ by Hemingway when I was in the eighth grade. I remember feeling stunned and horrified that one person could treat another person this way. How could anyone have a sexual relationship based on nothing? It defied everything my parents told me about what a relationship should be: something only to be pursued when I was in grad school, never a first priority, and only as a sacred, sacred bond. Of course, as I grew up, I would find out through my own experiences and watching friends get into bad relationships that sex happened all the time in meaningless and empty ways, used as a tool of power or as a way to control people, or as a way to express intimacy when neither participant knew how to communicate well.
> 
> During _A/B Tests_ I wanted to show how callous Dongho would be to Daehwi if given the opportunity, how defiantly ignorant. Hemingway's brutal short story came to mind, and this adaptation emerged.


End file.
